Consolidation for Some, Growth for T. Rowe Price

By Janet Levaux

August 01, 2006 at 04:00 AM

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During and after the Morningstar confab, several of the largest mutual fund companies made major announcements about their operations.

Baltimore-based Legg Mason, which acquired the former Smith Barney and Salomon Brothers mutual funds from Citigroup in December 2005, says it is rebranding these funds Legg Mason Partners Funds and merging some. The company, with $879 billion in AUM, plans to decrease the number of open-end funds it manages to 119 from 166.

The Janus Capital Group of Denver will ask shareholders to vote in October on the merger of the $2.2 billion Janus Olympus Fund into the $1 billion Janus Orion Fund. Janus' board of trustees approved the merger July 5. Janus has some $160 billion in AUM.

In the growth mode, T. Rowe Price says it intends to double the size of its Colorado Springs, Colo., facilities to the tune of $55 million. The new building should be completed by the end of next year and bring the fund group's total capacity in the area up to some 1,400 employees. With total AUM of nearly $300 billion, T. Rowe Price has some 500 associates in Colorado Springs.

In mid-June, the company opened its second walk-in investor center in the New York area in Garden City, N.Y. This gives the group a total of 13 investor centers; other centers include those in Short Hills, N.J., its home town of Baltimore, Walnut Creek, Calif., and Woodland Hills, Calif.

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